 |
|
The
Basis of Belief
A Century of Drama and Debate at the University
of Minnesota
|
|
|
By
Steven Keillor
304 pages, 2008, 6" x 9",
Paperbound
ISBN 13: 978-1-880654-40-8
Order Number: PP408
Price: $15.95
|
The
Basis of Belief tells
the story of the University of Minnesota's unofficial educational
agenda. Steven Keillor considers selected controversies that
have been energetically debated by educators, administrators,
and students for over a century at the University. Keillor
describes the clash between an experimental, scientific basis
for knowledge and a reliance on testimony, as in stories and
first-hand accounts. Which means of obtaining knowledge was
best? Which direction should a university take in influencing
and promoting one or the other? These arguments concern the
place in the University curriculum and student life of such
matters as science, religion, psychology, literature, evolution,
American Studies, academic freedom, and loyalty, as well as
less scholarly activities, such as student protests and strikes.
Keillor carefully draws upon diaries, letters, published accounts,
and interviews to assess how religion affected these subjects
in academic life.
Steven J.
Keillor offers us a series of stories that provide interesting
portraits revealing how the role of religion has changed dramatically
over the course of the history at one state university. Much of
what he does documents long-forgotten episodes and issues that
will be fascinating and illuminating to those who are familiar
with the University of Minnesota, or any state university, today.
-George Marsden, Professor of History at the University of Notre
Dame
The
Author
A lifelong resident of the state, Steven
J. Keillor earned his PhD in History at the University of Minnesota.
He has written biographies of two Minnesota governors-one of a
Republican (Knute Nelson) and one of a Farmer-Laborite and DFLer
(Hjalmar Petersen). The Minnesota Historical Society published
his history of the state's rural cooperatives, as well as a memoir
of a First-Minnesota soldier in the Civil War that he edited.
He has also written about the Grand Excursion of 1854 and the
history of the city of Rochester. He teaches Minnesota history
at Bethel University in St. Paul. Keillor has three children and
two grandchildren, and he resides with his wife Margaret in Askov,
Minnesota. Visit Steven Keillor's Web site at www.stevekeillor.com.
|
|
